Solid solution strengthening effect on creep strength of austenitic stainless steel

Abstract: Sanicro 25 is a newly developed austenitic stainless steel, designed for the next generation of Ultrasupercritical coal-fired boilers in electrical power plants. This material is applicable in reheater and superheater tubes, where the material temperature is up to 700 °C. One of the main strengthening mechanisms in high temperature materials is solid solution strengthening. A combination of this mechanism and precipitation hardening, promotes creep strength of heat resistance materials. The aim of this work was to characterize the effects of solid solution strengthening on creep strength of Sanicro 25.Previous works has been done for effects of phosphorous in copper and also for influence of laves phase on the creep properties of CrMo alloys. The results of these two works are used and the model is adapted to austenitic stainless steel. First a Zero starting state was defined which was Alloy 316H and then the calculation was made for Sanicro 25. Thermodynamic calculations were made using DICTRA and Thermo-Calc. Elastic misfit parameter was determined using ab initio calculations. The results from the simulation in this work indicate that solutes with larger size misfit compare to the parent atoms have better solid solution strengthening effect. A decrease in the creep strength by increasing temperature has been observed which could be attributed to growth of laves phase.